Objective To determine the prevalence of financial conflicts of interest among members of panels producing clinical practice guidelines on screening, treatment, or both for hyperlipidaemia or diabetes.

Conclusions The prevalence of financial conflicts of interest and their under-reporting by members of panels producing clinical practice guidelines on hyperlipidaemia or diabetes was high, and a relatively high proportion of guidelines did not have public disclosure of conflicts of interest. Organisations that produce guidelines should minimise conflicts of interest among panel members to ensure the credibility and evidence based nature of the guidelines' content.

48% of panel members had conflicts of interest and 11% of those that did not report conflicts of interest, did in fact have financial conflicts of interest.

Is evidence based medicine actually evidence based when both the primary research and clinical guidelines are conducted by people who have financial conflicts of interest?